LETTER: M65 extension would have avoided Colne congestion

It was in the mid-late 1960s/early 1970s that the then Colne Borough Council and Lancashire County Council decided to have a motorway from the M6 through to the M1. Houses in Colne, along the line the new motorway would have taken, were bought by LCC.

The extension was opposed by Lord Tony Greaves because, as I was informed, it would have “gone through his front door” where he lives in Winewall.

A number of years ago, LCC held an exhibition at Colne Municipal Hall on roads in and around Pendle. My informant sked one of the engineers why LCC hadn’t built the motorway extension. He was told North Yorkshire County Council would not extend it to the M1 because of objections from people, mainly in the Shipley area, who didn’t want it going through the Aire Valley.

However, we could have constructed our section of the motorway to the LCC/NYCC border, and what NYCC did on its side of the border would have been up to them, but the fact that communication between LCC and NYCC was not kept going has resulted in the loss of potential industrial development which could have provided well paid jobs, and the congestion we now see in Colne would have been avoided.

JEAN M. RILEY

Sough